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Comment by dmurray | Hacker News Reader

But supersonic engines already exist, and aircraft manufacturers almost universally buy instead of build when it comes to choosing an engine.

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One of the key features of Overture is its planned use of e-fuels.

I think this is almost crucial. Airlines are not going to line up to buy non-renewable, fuel-guzzling, net CO2-gushing supersonic jets for use over the next couple decades.

They will if its cheaper

Not if they're banned, which will almost certainly be the case by the time Boom is commercially available.

We're banning engines now?

Airlines are almost certain to face significant carbon regulation or carbon taxes in the next couple of decades. In turn, lots of engines will be effectively banned.

Of course, this is nothing new: noise abatement effectively banned a whole lot of engines, too.

We do that with the most polluting car engines.

Isn't it completely irrelevant for their development how the fuel is produced? My understanding is that E-fuels are exactly the same as "normal" fuels. They are just produced in a carbon neutral way. You can fly a 50 year old Concord on e-fuels.

They announced they're building their own because the regular engine OEMs showed little interest. Even if required modifications to historic or military turbojets are minor, there's a lot of expense in certifying them for use for a new type of passenger aircraft, and modern economical turbofans were not designed for supersonic flight...

(Almost?) exclusively on military planes which have different return on investment needs than commercial aircraft that need to be efficient first and foremost (ask Convair and BAC/Sud Aviation how many airlines valued speed over efficiency).

Only for military applications, which have much lower reliability and serviceability requirements.

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